Dubai International Cuts 2026 Passenger Forecast to 70 Million
DXB now expects 70 million passengers this year instead of 100 million, after airspace closures and the Iran war disrupted traffic through the Gulf hub.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
Dubai International Airport has lowered its 2026 passenger forecast to 70 million, well below the 100 million it had been targeting. Paul Griffiths, the airport's chief executive, gave the revised number to Reuters on Thursday. The original 100 million goal now shifts to the end of 2027.
Middle East tensions and the temporary closure of Gulf airspace did the damage, with the Iran war disrupting traffic through the hub. The half-year figures show how much. DXB processed 31.5 million passengers across the first six months of 2026, down from 46 million during the same stretch of 2025. First-quarter traffic fell to 18.6 million from 23.4 million.
Recovery is under way. Capacity has climbed back to 84% of what it was before the war, and passenger volumes have reached 78%. Some European carriers that suspended Gulf services during the conflict are expected to return from next month, a resumption that underpins the airport's revised year-end projection. Griffiths said he was "absolutely convinced" DXB would be "pretty much back" by the end of the year.
He argued that demand was never the problem. The transfer and point-to-point markets, he said, are "incredibly healthy" and should stay that way. India, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom remain DXB's three biggest markets. Business travel into and out of Dubai held up reasonably well through the disruption.
New routes, and a redesigned airport
Longer term, Griffiths sees smaller, longer-range aircraft opening city pairs that were previously uneconomical to serve from Dubai. The number of cities with direct DXB service could climb from 240 by mid-2027. The airport is in talks with several airlines about routes from cities that have never had a Dubai link, with Europe and Africa a particular focus.
The war is also shaping construction. Experience from the airspace closures may feed into design changes at the new Dubai airport now under development, with the aim of making it more resilient if airspace is disrupted again.
Emirates offered its own recovery picture. Adnan Kazim, the airline's deputy president and chief commercial officer, said Emirates had restored 93% of its flight capacity during August and about 98% of its global network. Speaking at the Arabian Travel Market 2026 conference, he said the carrier flew more than 8.7 million passengers in July and August, a figure that reflected strong summer demand.
A hub built on connecting traffic is only as strong as the airspace around it. DXB's capacity and its passenger totals now point in different directions: the infrastructure is close to fully restored, while the annual count will land roughly 30 million below the figure the airport had once pencilled in for this year. That mismatch is the one the designers of the new airport are being asked to plan around.
